Life, labor, and merit: War martyrdom as support encounters in late socialist Vietnam

Abstract

In socialist Vietnam, the Party State fashioned a cult of war martyrdom that rendered the violent deaths of large numbers of men and women meritorious sacrifices for the country, bestowing honor on both the dead soldier and the family. Gradually, a system of monetary allowances and other benefits for war-martyr families, veterans, and sick soldiers was introduced. What I argue in this chapter is that Vietnam’s Party State has sought to frame support encounters with war-martyr families and other war-afflicted citizens as being simultaneously about a common dedication to the memory of the victims’ achievements and about a selective allocation of benefits to eligible recipients.